The beginning of the 21st century ushered in an explosion of interest in all things food, evident not only through a plethora of new cookbooks (that ran the gamut from nostalgia to nutrition, time-saving recipes, ethnic meals and, yes, new weight-loss diets) but also through new culinary TV shows, popular movies, blogs and trendy new specialized restaurants – not to mention books, newspaper columns and social media posts.
Whether lighthearted or cautionary, the message was usually sprinkled with a recipe or two or three to keep the food vibe alive and fresh.
In her new book, Caroline J. Smith, associate professor in the University Writing Program at The George Washington University, analyzes those writings and messages in “Season to Taste: Rewriting Kitchen Space in Contemporary Women’s Food Memoirs” (University Press of Mississippi), offering readers opportunities to consider how women lived and wrote about the changes that have come about from the 1960s to the present.
Smith begins the book with a historical overview of not only the importance (or lack thereof) of kitchen space in the ‘60s, but how that space exemplified the role of women in a typical household at that time. From there she examines the “second-wave feminist movement” and shares the writings of current female writers such as Ruth Reichl, Kim Sunée, Jocelyn Delk Adams, Julie Powell, and Molly Wizenberg, who present the kitchen as a place of transformation, as this room eventually evolved into “the heart of the home.”
Through their memoirs (and their recipes), these women writers, by the act of preparing and consuming food, encourage readers to “reconsider the changing gender politics of the kitchen.”
Smith has taught a variety of first-year writing seminars themed around such topics as visual culture, women’s writing, and popular culture. She completed her undergraduate work at Moravian University in her hometown of Bethlehem, Penn., and her graduate work at the University of Delaware. She now lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband (Frank), her son, (Henry), and their two dogs (Halle and Pippin).
How did you come up with the idea of writing a book examining women’s writings about food, cooking and kitchens?
My first book, “Cosmopolitan Culture and Consumerism in Chick Lit,” focused on the 1990s publishing trend of “chick lit.” I saw how these books responded to a variety of advice manuals geared toward women. One chapter focused on domestic advice manuals, and for it, I did a lot of research on Martha Stewart and other food-related texts. That chapter was my favorite. I started reading a lot of food memoirs and decided that my next project would focus on that genre.
I’ve also always been interested in writing trends and what about a particular historical moment encourages that trend. Food writing really took off in the early 21st century, and I wanted to consider why women were returning to the space of the kitchen – especially when feminists of the 1960s considered the space a place of imprisonment. That became a key consideration for me as I set out to research and write.
You describe in your book the slow transition of home kitchens from the 1960s to the ‘80s that went from small, almost dreary rooms ruled by the wife and/or mother, to spaces that became the gathering place for the entire family. How did this transformation of home kitchens change the dynamics of gender roles?
Yes, I found that the space of the kitchen transformed alongside women’s roles. To see how, I looked at representations of kitchen space in editions of Better Homes and Gardens from 1960-2010. In early editions of the magazine, the kitchen was small and often closed off from the rest of the home – not at all like our open concept floor plans of today. As women moved into the public sphere, or workplace, those walls between the kitchen and the home’s living spaces literally disappeared. The individuals depicted in those spaces changed as well. While women were often exclusively seen in the space of the kitchen in early editions of the magazine, in more contemporary issues, men were often portrayed cooking.
Briefly describe how Delk Adams is making a difference in supporting women of color in the food industry, and how her efforts are revealing, as you state, “the many ways in which food and the preparation of it are both a powerful and political act.”
Most obviously, the space of the kitchen and the preparation of food reflects women’s roles. But, as we all know, women are not a monolith, and I wanted to write about the interesting and complex ways that food writers speak to all kinds of positionality.
Delk Adams does that brilliantly. As a Black woman, she performs the role of the stereotypical housewife in images on both her blog, Grandbaby Cakes, and in her cookbook, “Grandbaby Cakes: Modern Recipes, Vintage Charm, and Soulful Memories.” In doing so, she calls to mind what Betty Friedan in her book “The Feminine Mystique” describes as “the happy housewife heroine.” Friedan, a leader of the second wave feminist movement, deals exclusively with white, middle-class women in her book. In fact, the second wave feminist movement is often criticized for its exclusion of women of color. Adams, in invoking the “happy housewife heroine,” references all these issues of racial inequality. She reminds us that the stereotypical housewife, as portrayed in popular culture, is often a white woman. She also reminds us that the most prevalent images of women of color in the kitchen, as portrayed by popular culture, is often in service to whites – whether as the enslaved or as a domestic worker.
Adams’s work also upholds a larger – positive – history of Black women in the kitchen. Her cookbook contains recipes from her female relatives as well as their photographs. She is an advocate for Black women in the food industry, and she is not afraid to call out the racism within that industry. On both her blog and in her cookbook, she lifts up the food work of past generations of Black women in order to address the incomplete and false narrative that pop culture consumers often receive about Black women in the kitchen.
Talk about, as mentioned in your book, the negative messaging about women’s appetites and why they are targeted when it comes to their food preparation and consumption.
This is a topic that also came up in my first book. Many “chick lit” heroines are obsessed with the management of their bodies. In this new wave of women’s writing – which came shortly after the “chick lit” craze – women writers were embracing not only the preparation of food but the consumption of it. The two women writers I explore in relation to this idea are Kim Suneé (“Trail of Crumbs,” 2008) and Giulia Melucci (“I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti,” 2009). At first, the premise of each memoir seems very much in line with the “chick lit” genre; both women write about their romantic relationships. Food, both the preparation and appreciation of it, however, serves as the organizing principle of each woman’s memoir. Unlike “chick lit” characters, Suneé and Melucci not only prepare food, but they also eat and enjoy it.
Suneé and Melucci also include recipes throughout their memoirs. They want their readers to prepare and enjoy food as well. The way in which these writers engage with food seems like a pointed political act in the face of a culture which encourages women to manage their bodies in order to remain young and desirable. Deprivation of food is often key to this aesthetic, and these food writers directly rebel against that messaging.
In closing, you stated in the book that since the beginning of the 21st century, Americans have become “increasingly preoccupied with all things food,” as we are daily inundated with food topics spread all over TV, social media and print publications. Why do you think this is?
This is such a great question and one which doesn’t have an easy answer! In her introduction to “The Best American Food Writing 2018,” food writer Ruth Reichl credits both television and the internet for this trend. In part, I think she is speaking to a democratizing of food culture that these pop culture creations enabled. Reichl discusses how, early on in her career, food – in particular good food in fancy restaurants – was something reserved for the upper class. Popular culture made food culture more accessible to the masses.
I think Reichl’s hypothesis is spot on, but I also think that there are many other factors that have contributed to this interest. For example, people are becoming more environmentally conscious – especially with the threat of climate change – and they want to think more critically about their food and where it comes from. The pandemic, of course, heightened this interest; it prompted people to think differently about their preparation and consumption of food. Gone were the restaurant dinners and even trips to the grocery store! And, of course, during that time, food became a comfort for some of us, i.e., the sourdough starter craze!
The topic of food can be approached from a variety of disciplinary angles, which means most people can find interesting connections between food and their professional area of interest. And, of course, most obviously, everybody eats!
Clarion-Ledger / Hattiesburg American Mississippi Books Page 